My Recent Contest Poem

[Petrarch's Love]

Some of us wanted to comment on or get comments on poems entered in the poetry contest, so we've agreed the authors of the poems can start up threads for commentary on their poems if they so desire. I'm starting off the trend by offering my poem from the recent round up for commentary, questions, and criticism. I've pasted the poem below, and the following post is the picture it was based on for those who haven't been following the contest:

In Nomine Patris et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti
(In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit)

Water smooth and flat to conceal its sins,
Blameless face of blue presents itself
To the pillars of the light of heaven
Which pierce through the remnants of the storm.
The trinity stand by the waveless sea:
Papa distant where his old blue boat is tied,
Oldest brother with the nets in hand,
Middle brother ankle deep beside
The boat with a knot like an eye in its prow.
All have been witness to the same event.

Pater noster, qui es in caelis
“Our father, our father,” the words come by instinct
To the minds of the trinity on the shore,
Words come from the years of childhood kneeling
Between Mama and Papa in Sunday best.
Words come from the years of fatherhood kneeling
Beside their own children and wives. Words come
As they came to the youngest brother in his last moment.
Fiat voluntas tua, sicut in caelo et in terra
“Our father, your will be done; your will be done.”
The words came by instinct to their son and brother,
Who had knelt beside them with his wife and child
Whom they’d watched as a baby carried with hope
To the priest for the blessing of water,
Whom they’d watched as the water choked him
In the midst of his prayer to an angry sky.

Et dimitte nobis debita nostra,
“Our father, forgive us, forgive us.
Our father, are you in heaven?
Our father, can we forgive the trespasses against us?
Our father, you know not what you do.
We ask you to deliver us from evil
And you take away our good, our brother and our son.
Our father? Our father?” The words come by instinct
From something born in them, from before birth.

And the unseen questions rise to where
Unseen nails suspend incarnate anguish
While the bones snap and muscles tear
And the neck, limp with suffering, drops the head.
The page above the bending neck presents no INRI,
No explanation, only a blameless face of white-a tabula rasa.
The light illumines pain on earth as it is in heaven
All else is darkness
As the Son lowers his head over the bending world.

[Petrarch's Love]

http://www.heureka.clara.net/books/dali-crossofstjohn2.jpg

[ShoutGrace]

Okay, now I only have to provide some halfway decent comments. :D

“remnants of the storm.”

I like that a lot – the Bible says that the sky darkened and, the earth shook, and “rocks” were “split” etc – but it was also (theoretically) the most intense kind of spiritual storm, as well (and emotional, for the onlookers).

It was also interesting how you reiterated the word “trinity” for the people near the bottom of the painting, though I’m not sure what to make of it yet. :blush:

I think that your second stanza remembers the crucified man in a kind of homely and natural way, which is incidentally (and perhaps understandably) neglected by nearly all persons thinking about Jesus. The line:

“Our father, your will be done; your will be done.”

followed by the image of the human baby that he was . . . I liked that a lot.


“Incarnate anguish.”

This one meant so much to me when I first read it. So much Christian theology concerns Jesus as having been God “incarnate” and also as having taken on the tremendous spiritual burden of human sin – and for me you combined those two prominent ideas succinctly with those two words (but also the physical anguish, as well, of course).

And, also kind of supplied a criticism of it, in my mind, i.e. not incarnate God, or incarnate savior, but rather incarnate pain and tragedy. Just something that crossed my mind.

“The light illumines pain on earth as it is in heaven.”

And this of course has the echo of the Lord’s Prayer that is running throughout your poem. It’s very well done.

About the “King of the Jews” – it does serve as a kind of explanation, or reasoning, you could say, as to why the crucifixion took place (bad wording here), and Dali’s choice to leave it off was rather interesting . . . what do you think he meant by that?

I would like to understand your poem better but I am quite sure that even if I don't understand it, and I'm way off (which I'm sure I am :D), I certainly enjoyed it most. :)

[jon1jt]

i recall reading one of your other poetry submissions this summer that responded to the portrait of a cube or box, and thought that was a winner. this one is terrific as well. you painted this portrait with words rendered in a beautiful prosey form.

my favorite lines too many to list, so i'll keep it simple and go with these:
:)

Water smooth and flat to conceal its sins,
Blameless face of blue presents itself

[Dr Eep]

Petrarchs love wrote;
“Our father, your will be done; your will be done.”
The words came by instinct to their son and brother,
Who had knelt beside them with his wife and child
Whom they’d watched as a baby carried with hope
To the priest for the blessing of water,
Whom they’d watched as the water choked him
In the midst of his prayer to an angry sky.

I enjoyed that and just related to the questions asked throughout your poem.
It's like we trust the Father's will but - can't truly fathom the brutality of it sometimes! In all of this - the only comfort we could cling to is that, Christ - the Son of God, descended below all of us in the level of his suffering in order that we might be redeemed. I suppose, one day we will all know a fullness of joy as we've gone through this life filled with opposition and perplexing, often torturous trials. I believe we will all one day reach that point.

[Petrarch's Love]

Sorry it's taken a few days to respond to this. Thanks all of you for the feedback.

Dr. Eep--I'm glad you found something to relate to in this poem. You're right that it was very much in reaction to the way we "can't truly fathom the brutality of it sometimes!"

Jon--Thanks for your kind words. I'm glad you liked the first lines. Those were some of my favorites too. Thanks also for the nice comments on my previous box poem. I remember that one being a lot of fun to write.

Shoutgrace--I'm glad you found so much of interest and that you could relate to in the poem. Maybe it would be easiest to address your comments by giving a little of the backstory about how this poem came about. When I first looked at the picture what struck me was how evident the figure of Christ was, and I was going to write a poem that had something to do with the awareness the fishermen had of this vast spiritual form above them. Then it occured to me that that it might be more moving to imagine a moment of doubt (which even the most faithful believers experience at some time or another) in the face of this overwhelming visual proof. While I was thinking along those lines I noticed that the instruments of suffering usually depicted in crucifiction scenes were absent. Not only is the INRI missing (which is, of course, not only an explanation, but specifically a taunting explantation for the crucifiction), but there are no nails, no blood, no visible wounds, and no crown of thorns. It seemed to me as though the lack of wounds, the blank piece of paper etc, were somehow mirrored in the surreally smooth surface of the water below, and that's where the opening lines of the poem came from.
I imagined the fishermen were a father and his two sons who had just lost a family member to a storm, and so the instrument of their pain (the storm) had vanished just as the instruments of Christ's pain were invisible above. I'm not sure exactly what Dali meant by leaving out the INRI and the other signs of taunting and torture, but there's something in it that simultaneously suggests to me the possibility of either a kind of denial, in which the viewer is refusing to acknowledge his/her part in causing that pain; and a kind of hope in which the paper presents us a tabula rasa on which to build anew.

In my poem I wanted there to be a little room for ambiguity so that, for example, the lines about the baby could be taken to refer to the man who had just drowned as a baby, with an almost accusatory parallel between the water of baptism, which the fishermen hoped would preserve life, and the water of the storm, which brought death, and which they (in a moment of loss and doubt) might be blaming on God. However, at the same time I wanted there to be, as you rightly interpreted it, a reference in that second stanza to the crucified christ as a child born with the foreshadowed knowledge of his own death.


“Incarnate anguish.”

This one meant so much to me when I first read it. So much Christian theology concerns Jesus as having been God “incarnate” and also as having taken on the tremendous spiritual burden of human sin – and for me you combined those two prominent ideas succinctly with those two words (but also the physical anguish, as well, of course).

I'm glad you found that phrase impactful. It struck me as saying just what I wanted to say, but I wasn't sure if others would respond to it the same way.

[ShoutGrace]

Thank you so much for explicating here, PL. It's not often that you get the poet to discuss the work in such a manner. I still need time to absorb and deal with it all. ;)

Your process simply astounds me - I find the pattern and depth of thought you touch on here tremendous. All that just from observing a painting . . . it's beyond me.